They usually contain books the author hasn’t read to pad the articles word count.I hate that. I’m a huge reader and love when ACTUAL pros share their list. That’s why I decided to share the 11 best copywriting books I’ve discovered.Each book has specifically helped me:*Increase the number of clients I get*Land better clients*Get more gigs on Upwork*Raise my hourly rates*And more

Jennifer’s book was amazing. In under 250 pages, she distills key skills that took her years of trial and effort to get right.

Lateral Strategy Book: Trading Up By:Michael Silverstein

I am working more with businesses looking to carry high return products or services to add to their revenue.

That is what makes this one of the best copywriting books out there. It helps me increase the impact I bring clients without increasing my labor.It does this by outlining the psychology that compels people to pick higher priced options-even when a similar product/service is available for a portion of the cost.

Silverstein’s book broke the psychology, positioning, and more that gets consumers to choose higher priced products and services when offered more affordable options.

Freelance Writing Book For Everyone-Building A StoryBrand:Donald Miller

Freelance writers need to know how to tell a story. Donald Miller lays out the best possible methods to tell stories so well that readers become customers.

More clients are interested in creating relationships with their leads. This book will show you how to write content in such a way that it does that.

Donald lays out, step by step, how you can tell a better story to get more clients. This will help you understand the way people perceive your content along with how to position it to get the best results.

This is the sleeper hit in my list of best-copywriting books.John is someone I know and trust. He was the best door to door knife salesman-in the country! He created a gifting company from the principles he learned being the best salesman in the country.Giftology is, at its heart, a book about building and maintaining relationships organically. If you are at the point in your career where you are working with clients for 6 months or longer this is a must read.Get It Here

The Book To Read When You Finally Decide To Go Full Time:Fanatical Prospecting:Jeb Blount, Mike Weinberg

This is one of the best copywriting books that aren’t specifically about copywriting that I read this year.

If you want to go full time you have to read this book. It outlines the exact method you need to use to get and stay booked solid.

When I finally found this book I was upset. Why?I wish I had found it years earlier! The principles in the book detail how you need to create a consistent practice of cultivating clients. There are some points where the message bleeds over from work like into real life. As an online freelancer, I don’t think this will apply. You aren’t selling a physical product so your reach will be bottlenecked (in a good way).

If you are looking to increase your hourly rates this is a great book too. It helps you increase your rates by growing the flow of clients into your funnel.The Being A Better Sales Copywriter Book:The Ultimate Sales Letter-Dan Kennedy

Look, if you haven’t read Dan Kennedy you are missing out. Dan is old and some of his content is dated-but the thinking and strategies are still good.This is one of those books that is on every ‘best copywriting books’ list you’ll find-and for good reason.

Dany has blazed a path for freelance copywriters. Dan showed how creating the right sales message can help you make 6 to 7-figures decades ago!This is pure sales copywriting at its best. If you are looking to pick up some mindsets and direct response skills to take to your clients this is a must read!

This is another one of those weird books that doesn’t teach copywriting but can make you a better copywriter.I actually had to read it twice to really appreciate how it applied. The first time I read it I skimmed it and came away with zero new ideas. Later on, I went back and saw that the book was filled with strategies I could insert into the copy I created.

Like Dan Kennedy’s sales letter book, everyone says to read this-but few actually do. I’m glad I made a point to really dig in, and you will to.Get It Here

Note:The authors also have a book on branding. I haven’t read it but if you are looking to grow your branding knowledge check it out and write me back about the experience. I’d love to know if you liked it or not-and why.

The Negotiation Book To Get Better Contracts And Clients-Start With No:Jim Camp

Freelancers don’t understand negotiation.

If you think of negotiation as a shady thing you do to get more money or diffuse negative situations-you need to read this book.Jim is a brilliant and it shows. The book outlines strategies and mindsets he uses to prepare for negotiations, position himself for the best outcome before ever saying a word, and understanding the outcome he wants before he starts.

This book will help you because it can show you how to create contracts that are fair and get clients to recognize the importance of paying you what you are worth.

‘There aren’t a lot of copywriting specific books on there.’-YouYou are right. I didn’t include a lot of copywriting strategy books because there are so many different styles I didn’t want to influence you to choose just one.

To be a great copywriter, increase your hourly rates, and book yourself solid you need to create a skill set specific to interests you have.That’s why I included books that impacted me as a copywriter.

Last year I read ‘Thinking Fast And Slow’ By Daniel Kahneman. This is a book that covers the psychology of cognitive reasoning and reaction.The book didn’t teach anything about copywriting but what I learned resulted in me:

1:Booking a long form sales page2:Generating $400K in sales for this project

‘This is great. But how do I know which books are right for me? And how many should I read?’

-You

Great question! To help you pick the books that are right for you I’ve included the guidelines I use when deciding to read a book.

How To Identify And Buy The Best Copywriting Books For Your Needs

I love books and read all the time. This was a huge weakness for me for years.

I would buy whatever caught my eye and end up wasting time reading something that didn’t help me.

To make sure I used my time the best way possible I came up with three guidelines I use to decide if I should read the book or not.

Guideline 1: It Teaches Me Something New

The first guideline I use is asking if taking the time to read the book will teach me something I don’t know but should.

I would love to learn about SEO but my clients don’t come to me for it. My clients want a sales strategy, increased conversion, and business strategy.

What about subjects I already know? Do I buy more books on it? It depends.

I will buy a book about a subject I already know if it:

A:Gives me a bigger insight I don’t currently have

B:Shines a light on an issue I haven’t been able to solve

C:It discusses something my clients have started talking about that they haven’t before

Guideline 2:Does It Teach Me A Non-Industry Skill I Can Apply Laterally

Learning non-industry skills that apply to your industry is a competitive advantage few service providers develop. The best copywriting books provide simple ways for you to stand out from the competition naturally.

When I read ‘Thinking Fast And Slow’ I was able to outline a strategy that increased sales by considering a psychological approach tailored to a specific emotion.

When I look for non-industry books I focus on writing that gives me insight into a strategy, mindset, or approach that applies across all platforms.

The 12 Week Year By Brian Moran accomplished that. It’s approach to getting more done showed me how to execute large projects in short amounts of time.

You need to constantly increase your skills not just as a service provider but also as an entrepreneur.

This is where you develop the skills that keep clients working with you for years to come, get you key referrals, and expose you to greater opportunity.

Reading The 4 Principles Of Execution by Sean Covey helped me increase my per day output without experiencing a decrease in quality of work. The management skills showed me how to better manage execution across my entire business.

When picking a book in this area its best to start small and scale. Identify something you need help with and then work to resolve that.

First I’m going to share a counter-intuitive solution so simple you’ll slap yourself in the head for not doing it. You are going to love this. It also has the added benefit of not having to waste time justifying your price to clients.

The second part will explain how to deal with this problem if you use job boards (IE-Upwork, Fiverr, etc). It covers what you can change to start seeing better results instantly.

Finally, I’ll cover the 3-principles I use to help my students answer the question ‘what should I charge’?

A New Approach To Pricing

Do you want to know the answer to ‘how much should I charge’? Here’s what I think. My opinion is based on my experience replacing a full-time income by working online.

The thing to pricing yourself fairly is not to focus on how much you charge per hour.

‘What?! How much should I charge to bill a client if I don’t have an hourly rate?’

-You

Billing per hour is losing you money. Why? Because you aren’t a commodity. You are a providing a service that delivers a result. It’s hard to understand this if you aren’t in a results-based service (copywriting for example).

Imagine this…

A client wants a long-form blog post. They want it to:

*Be 2,000 words long

*The article to be SEO optimized

*And they want you to put it into WP for them.

It’s an easy gig. You can deliver what the client wants quickly. That’s not the issue. The issue is that you can bring even more value to the project.

How?

You not only get them a finished project you also create content that delivers results they hadn’t considered.

You price the project at $650. The client responds back,

‘Your site says you charge $65 an hour. Are you telling me it will take you ten hours to write a blog post?’

What do you do?

If you are me you tell them,

‘The per hour price is placeholder. I charge on the value and results I create. If the price is outside your budget maybe we can pursue a different project.’

If you aren’t used to dealing with clients you freak out.

You pile on a ton of extra work to ‘justify’ your price. By the time you are done, you are doing $1200 worth of work for $650.

This also has a bonus result. Not having a per hour rate also makes it easier for clients to start conversations with you. This digs into the issue a LOT of beginners and semi-experienced people miss.

Clients generally don’t know how to do what they are asking. Or worse, they claim they know how to do it and have experience doing it but don’t have the time (run by these people. run far away)

When you don’t put a per hour price out there you do two things:

1:You keep the client from figuring what the price should be by guessing at how long they think it will take and then pricing the project based on their projection.

Hmmm a blog post. That should take like three hours. At their rate that’s $195.
-The Client

2:You keep a client from thinking they CAN’T afford you. Clients are just as likely to overestimate how long a project will take and avoid hiring you based on what they imagine a price will be.

A big post. That’ll probably take like twenty hours. Do I really want to pay $1300 for a post?
-Also The Client

Now that we covered that what do you do in places like Upwork where you have to post an hourly rate?

The Upwork Hourly Rate Solution

If you worry this solution won’t apply to Upwork (or any job board) don’t. The same mindset I mentioned above applies to job boards. To make it work you need to make one easy change.

The Easy Job Board Change

You need to curate better clients to send proposals to. This is a big issue for beginners and part-timers. You’ve been there. Hell, we all have. You get caught up in sending proposals and doing interviews and something slips by.

The next thing you know you are in an interview with someone you don’t like but find yourself agreeing to the project. A week later you are near tears begging for help in FB groups on how to leave the contract.

That’s why in my second tutorial teardown Tuesday I discussed signs to look for in a job post before sending a proposal.

Next article I am going to cover why books are the biggest untapped resource you have access to that will help you:

1:Book more gigs

2:And find better quality clients who pay higher rates

With job boards, you should worry less about ‘What should I charge’ and more about who you want to work with. This is something the so-called experts miss. They want you to get work. That’s fine.

The problem with seeing work as just a commodity is you lose sight of the issues bad clients have. When you take these ‘experts’ advice you end up working for clients who waste your time and suck your energy. Knowing who you want to work with will save you a lot of frustration. It guides your growth, keeps you from bad clients, and keeps you focused on your goals.

That means you need to avoid clients looking for, or promising:

*A quick turnaround

*Unlimited revisions

*More work if this turns out

Simply put, if a client is promising you things in the job post chances are they aren’t the type of person you want to work with. Why? Because they have experience with freelancer’s fears and are using them against you!

So What Should I Charge

I know we’ve talked a lot so far but haven’t hit on why you are here. But it’s important!

Knowing all the small things above makes everything that comes after so much easier to do!

Okay we covered why you shouldn’t charge by the hour and how to get around the issue of having your per hour pricing up if you work on a job board.

So what should you charge?

It depends on three things:

1:Are you doing ongoing work with the client

If you are signing on for projects where you have ongoing work your client acquisition cost will be higher (IE-the time and energy it takes to find a client will be greater than working with a ‘one-off client).

That means you will get fewer clients so you need to price yourself at the value you want to make a month based off working with fewer clients.

This isn’t brazen permission to overcharge. This is here for you to take a bigger view at what you want to accomplish and what it will take to accomplish them. Getting four clients for $200 gigs sounds amazing! You have a lot of clients, you feel busy, you are answer questions and emails. It feels good.

However, you’d be better off getting one $800 client or two $600 clients. It isn’t as exciting but the pay is better. Remember that the time you spend getting clients you aren’t getting paid for. That’s why you want to make the most of the time you have and focus on pitching to clients that fit into your guidelines like I mentioned earlier!

I’m a conversion copywriter and marketing strategist. I get my clients more leads, sales, and authority in the market.

That is valuable because it not only guides the business it also saves them money knowing what NOT to pursue. I can charge more because the value I bring to clients is returned multiple times.

Think about how your service delivers results. What would the client lose in opportunity costs, revenue, or leads if they got something that didn’t work? What would a bad logo, a terrible sales page, a poorly designed marketing plan cost them?

Knowing what you bring to the table makes it easier to provide a larger price than your competition. It also makes it easier to remain firm when clients ask for discounts. We’ll cover this more in a bit.

3:Your experience

You should charge in relation to your experience. If you are a first-year freelancer your rates aren’t set at $45/hr.

However, it could be your first year freelancing but your service is something you have ten years experience in. Remember charge the value of your experience not how long you’ve been freelancing.

I did direct mail copywriting for my entertainment business. I started Upwork with copywriting experience but no experience in online sales. I charged $65/hr because I knew the strategies and implementation but not well enough to guarantee results.

As my experience grew my price went up. I jumped to $95/hr, then $125/hr. Now I don’t take projects smaller than $1500/day.

So what’s the answer to ‘what should I charge’?

Simple.

Charge in relation to your experience and the value you bring. Authority is worth more than labor.

How One Free Resource 10X’S Your Authority

Do you want to increase your authority without spending thousands of dollars on training and coaches?

Next blog post will cover the one thing I do EVERY MONTH to build authority that costs less than the price of one lunch!

I don’t disagree that people can use cold emailing to get clients. My disagreement is that cold emailing is the least effective methods to get clients you can use! People like cold emailing because it is satisfying.

You find emails, you send emails, and it’s done. People like closure. Here’s the thing though…

If you can write cold emails well enough to secure work then you are leaving money on the table. This brings me to my first point

1:You Probably Don’t Write Well Enough For Cold Emailing To Work

Writing cold emails that convert is an art. Great copywriters spend years learning how to do it.

Sure you can mass blanket hundreds of businesses with that trendy template you picked up but here’s the thing…You are wasting your time.

The time you spend sending cold emails could be spent pursuing effective and higher paying ways to get clients where even if you don’t land the client right away, you’ll be positioned to get their work in the future

In the book Daniel explains that, as animals, we also think with our feelings. We love gratification and sending an email has a sense of accomplishment.

This is unlike a networking strategy where you are constantly waiting and creating opportunities to start conversations with people organically.

Now you know the opportunity cost of cold emailing, the skill cost, but we still need to cover the biggest loss when you cold email a client, authority.

3:Cold Emails Lower Your Authority In A Client’s Eyes

Do you want to charge big money for multi-month projects?

Do you want to do this with clients you like with projects you love? You need to build authority.

Authority is key to attracting and booking premium work. Cold emailing doesn’t create authority. When you cold email a client you are asking permission to work for them.

Authority doesn’t ask permission. Every relationship you create with cold email is one where the client is in control.

You don’t want to be in relationships you aren’t in control of. Cold emailing leads to an ‘I work for you’ mentality. You don’t want that. You want to promote a mutually beneficial mindset of ‘We work together.’

So what should you do? Create authority through networking, content promotion, niching into your industry.

The One Person Who Proves This Wrong And Why It Doesn’t Apply

Do you know who Laura Lopuch is? Probably not.

Laura is one of two cold emailers I know that actually run a successful business. In fact, the people promoting cold emailing as a viable growth model don’t really understand the freelancing business.

‘Wait, Laura built a 6-figure year doing it. It must work.’

-You

Here’s the thing, Lauras is an amazing writer and marketer. Her cold emailing got her work with Ramit Sethi and other online giants. Regular writers won’t land those gigs.

You show up. You work from this time to this time. You do this thing today. You don’t have to do anything but work. The burden of making choices is lifted freeing you from distraction.

Now that we know the culprit behind why you have imposter syndrome, and the reason your brain makes you feel that way, let’s look at the three triggers that cause you to feel like an imposter.

The 3-Imposter Syndrome Triggers

In my experience (both personally and with students) there are three things that trigger imposter syndrome.

Trigger 1:Choice Paralysis

When you work at a job all of your choices are made for you. When you work for yourself you have to make all the choices.

You choose:

*Your schedule

*How much work you do

*When you work

*When to break

*Where you work

*How to dress when you work

A lack of boundaries can be overwhelming. You try to solve this with logic. You lose yourself ing blog posts and books on solutions only to realize there is so much you don’t know that you freak out.

With the solution below you no longer have to freak out.

Trigger 2:Down Time

At your regular job, you had plenty of downtimes. You enjoyed it because you knew at some point you’d be given work.

As a freelancer, you’ll have downtime but instead of enjoying it you get freaked out.

‘I’m not doing anything right now. I’m a failure. I don’t have clients. I don’t have work!

-You

The truth is jobs waste a lot of time. They have to. They have to justify keeping people in a building with little work all day.

To combat these issues jobs fill the days with memos, endless meetings, and useless training. Don’t worry, as you get accustomed to freelancing you’ll realize you can fit an entire day’s labor in two to three hours.

Trigger 3:The Feast And Famine Cycle

With a job you never have to worry where the next project was coming from.

As a freelancer, you are responsible for creating an endless stream of leads. If you don’t have experience with this you’ll see dips in your work.

Emotionally you freak out so you turn to other logical resolutions. You read blogs, books, and suddenly you’ve wasted all day reading about how to drive leads instead of driving them.

You can escape the imposter syndrome cycle by changing how you respond to it. Here’s what I’ve found to work.

How I Overcome Imposter Syndrome

You can enjoy being a freelancer! You can do it without the anxiety, time wasted chasing pointless leads, and taking jobs you don’t work for pay you don’t like.

You can do this using my ‘Habit Mastery’ technique. This technique is based on years of research done on habits. If you want to get deeper into the insights of why it works you should pick up Charles Duhigg’s book on habits. Here

This technique works on two levels. First it cuts out the exposure to the triggers that cause it. Second, it changes your mindset when you do feel it.

What if you aren’t a full-time freelancer? Does this still apply?

Yes! This approach works for both part timers and full-timers.

Here’s What You Do

Open up Google Calendars (or your planners if you are old school paper and pen) and plan out your week.

Get specific. Write the time you plan to start, the time you plan to stop when you plan to have lunch, when you will work, when you will research, when you will pitch, when you will take meetings, and where you plan to do.

That’s it. If it sounds simple…It’s because it is.

Fill that schedule full!

By providing the structure your brain craves you alleviate the need to make decisions in the moment. Controlling your day lifts the burden of uncertainty and cognitively engrains positive habits into your day.

Why This Works:The Power Of Habits

Establishing and following this habit engrains the behavior of being the boss into your mind.

Habits change your story. So change yours.

What about those times when you feel like an imposter anyway?

You won’t. As this habit becomes established the feeling will lessen and eventually go away.

Why?

Creating the habit of being an entrepreneur changes the story you tell yourself. You are no longer a freaked out part timer skipping gig to gig hoping that your clients don’t drop you.

You quite worrying about the day to day and start planning towards bigger goals. You become an entrepreneur.

Re-Cap:Use authority to create order, establish a habit, and tell a better story.

Wonder If The Bad Press About Agencies Is True

Should agencies should be part of your story?

‘No! Everyone says they suck.’

-Most freelancers

Check out my next blog post. In it I cover the pros and cons of working for an agency and lay bare the biggest myths on both sides. You might learn that agencies are right for you!

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